Creativity | Learning Lab Consulting

From Creativity

Mindfulness and Creativity: Q and A with the Columbus Museum of Art Teaching for Creativity Institute

January 31st, 2017 Learning Labs Consulting

What does mindfulness have to do with creativity? So much. Check out this Q and A with CMA‘s Teaching for Creativity Institute from an event I did on January 21 on mindfulness and self-care to find out more.

How does mindfulness assist in the creative process?

Creativity is an inherent aspect of the human condition. However, our mindsets, beliefs and self-talk can create obstacles to accessing it. Mindfulness cultivates ways of thinking and being that can counteract these obstacles.

To use an example, I facilitate an activity where I ask participants to make their brains out of Play-Doh in either an abstract or a figurative interpretation. They are then asked to explain their brain in a small group discussion. Afterward, each person reflects independently on the sensations, thoughts, and feelings experienced during the activity.

When we share our reflections, I most commonly hear people say things like:

• “I was nervous because I didn’t know if I was doing it right.”

• “I compared my brain to other people’s, and I felt like mine wasn’t as good.”

• “I was worried about sharing my brain because I didn’t know if others were going to judge me.”

This type of limiting self-talk is automatic for many of us. Feeling as if there is a right way to do things, comparing with others, and worrying about how we might be judged are all obstacles to our creativity. Mindfulness is a way to distance ourselves enough from these self-limiting beliefs to engage and share safely what is within.

For more on the connection between mindfulness and creativity, check out the Mindful Creativity page on my site.

(Answer originally appeared in this blog post/interview for the website Mindful Teachers)

Does it get easier to be mindful? How will I know when I grow?

It does get easier… sometimes. Our brains naturally wander, and formal mindfulness practice is one way to “train” our brains to not do this as often. I have had my own mindfulness practice for a couple of years, and I have seen many very positive results in my life, but there are still times when I am triggered and engage in rumination, negative self-talk etc. It just happens with less frequency.

There is no clear cut timeline for when and how each individual person will grow and how. Many research-based programs are eight weeks of daily practice, and there are documented results that this will create some brain change. At the same time, each person has their own disposition. Some people are naturally more mindful than others, too.

On a personal note, I was not one of those “mindful” people before I started this journey. My brain had a lot of stories, there was a lot of rumination, I often disappeared into my own world and noticed little around me. Change may have happened slower for me because of this. However, I also needed the practice a lot more, which gave me the impetus to continue. There are negatives and positives to every situation.

You can know your own growth by keeping track of your day-to-day life. When I first started my practice, I journaled after every sitting and noted how I was feeling in that moment, how that day had been for me emotionally, and times when I had experienced moments of mindfulness (or lack thereof). This created a way for me to look back and see that, yes, I was in fact making progress.

Change research shows noting small successes can help us to continue. They give us hope. I think the journaling helped me with this.

Q and A: Writer’s Workshop at the ESC of Central Ohio

November 18th, 2016 Learning Labs Consulting

On November 9, I facilitated a Writer’s Workshop at the Educational Service Center. Below you will find the Q and A and some resources I use for the event.

During the workshop, we defined the importance of environment for the vulnerable work of sharing our writing together. The qualities the group determined were most important were: Courage, Purposefulness, and Respect, affectionately given the acronym CPR.

To begin, here is a link to the Power Point used in the workshop. In addition, here are other resources you may find helpful:

Also, here are the TEDTalks from Brene Brown on vulnerability and shame that I mentioned.

Beautiful Moments: Enchanted Forest Edition

March 11th, 2016 Learning Labs Consulting

There is an enchanting beauty found along the simplest paths of life. Mostly this is a metaphor, but sometimes, if you are open enough, it is literal, too.

Last Sunday on an early-morning walk so cold that our fingertips were icy-cold bits of numbness, I had to dance and skip alongside Mel to keep from becoming too chilled. Despite the cold, however, we walked for hours, and along the path we encountered some wondrous little surprises that enchanted us both.

Mel admiring the view. Photo by Brandi Lust

Mindful Play Time: Why Adult Humans Are Really Giant Toddlers

December 16th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

Last month, we decided to bring back the old tradition of apple bobbing. Unsanitary? Very much so. Also a great play time opportunity.

While researching for my play workshop, I came across an interesting concept called neoteny. According to the Scientific American article “Being More Infantile Might Have Led to Bigger Brains,” neoteny is “the retention of juvenile features.” For example, humans have big eyes, flatter faces and far less body hair than a mature chimpanzee, our closest ancestor. Basically, we have many of the features of a baby monkey. We have a slower maturation process than chimps, too.

Practice for Finding Inner Guidance: Journaling and Lectio Divina

November 27th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
― Rumi

Lectio Divina, or “divine reading” is traditionally a form of contemplative practice from the Christian faith tradition where one studies scripture seeking messages from God.

Today, it can also be used as a contemplative practice where one meditates on a text of choice, often times a poem, seeking individual connections and meanings.

Where Art and Science Intersect: Experimentation in Color

November 4th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

“Fundamentally, both art and science are about encounters with the real world — the one we live in and experience as colors, textures, shapes and sounds. Every artistic creation and every scientific study is a record of experimentation. At their best those experiments are rooted in two vital qualities: interest and attention… Interest and attention allow us to live lives that are rich in meaning, lives that are passionate about noticing the everyday miracles right in front of us.”

-“Where Art and Science Meet, Exactly,” Adam Frank

My little Sawyer is a scientist. He is an artist. And he doesn’t have a problem with blending the two. Hopefully his little world will stay creative like this forever. Hopefully he never gets the message that we have to be one thing or the other. Or really one of anything, totally.

A few weeks ago, he ordered a science kit online and one of the projects was to blend colored water in test tubes. He sat in the bathtub and made his science project into an artistic expression- a temporary rainbow.

____________________

Where do you find intersections between art and science in daily life?

Post your comments here or email me via the Contact Tab.

Beautiful Moments: Bare Toes in Fall Leaves and Bursting Blooms and Sun Rays

October 26th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

Pressing feet into fall leaves,

feeling the breeze

the rustling,

the crunch and crumble,

between my toes

Q and A from Teachers on Mindful Creativity

October 20th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

Last week I worked with some amazingly creative and engaged teachers from a variety of backgrounds facilitating a workshop on mindful creativity. The Q and A below is a result of questions from participants left on exit tickets, followed by my responses.

Why “mindfulness”? Any special reason for picking that word?

This is a really good question that gave me pause. I looked up the root of the word and came upon this document published by the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine. In short: mindfulness itself simply means intentional awareness to the moment, which is innately human and certainly not new. The formal practice of mindfulness has its root in Buddhism, and according to this article by Siegel, Germer, and Olendzki:

“‘Mindfulness,’ as used in ancient texts, is an English translation of the Pali word, sati, which connotes awareness, attention, and remembering. (Pali is the language in which the teachings of the Buddha were originally recorded. The first dictionary translation of sati into “mindfulness” dates to 1921 (Davids & Stede, 1921/2001).”

What is the difference between mindfulness and self-consciousness?

Mindfulness is about cultivating present-moment awareness and self-compassion. Self-consiousness does not necessarily equate to either of these outcomes. One can be aware of one’s self, particularly as viewed through the eyes of others or through the critical self, in ways that are neither objectively aware or self-compassionate. In addition, while mindfulness may create space or distance from thoughts, self-consciousness alone may increase one’s engagement with thoughts, particularly those about the self.

Mindful Creativity Workshop for Teachers: Oct. 16, 2015

September 18th, 2015 Learning Labs Consulting

I am hosting a workshop at the Wexner Center for the Arts for Capital (or COTA) day on October 16 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. called Mindful Creativity which is FREE and open to ALL teachers!

Here is a blurb about it from the Wexner Center website:

What does it mean to be “present”—to notice the colors and textures of our everyday surroundings? How does this “presence” apply to one’s process as an artist, a writer, a thinker, or an explorer of the world? Answering these questions and more will be the focus of this year’s Capital Day, Mindful Creativity. Learn how mindfulness works and what it looks like in practice. Investigate creativity through this lens to explore the world of art and artistry together using the exhibition After Picasso: 80 Contemporary Artists as inspiration. Consider ways that you can take this new knowledge to your students to enhance their own presence in the world and their abilities as explorers and artists. Come prepared to write, discuss, reflect, and practice mindfulness strategies.

You can register for the workshop on the Wexner Center website at this link. There is a gray box in the top right corner that says “register.”